King's College London, Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, London, UK.
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
Eur Eat Disord Rev. 2021 May;29(3):514-518. doi: 10.1002/erv.2760. Epub 2020 Jul 10.
In the current economic context, it is critical to ensure that eating disorder (ED) treatments are both effective and cost-effective. We describe the impact of a novel clinical pathway developed to better meet the needs of autistic patients with EDs on the length and cost of hospital admissions.
The pathway was based on the Institute for Healthcare's Model of Improvement methodology, using an iterative Plan, Do, Study, Act format to introduce change and to co-produce the work with people with lived experience and with healthcare professionals. We explored the change in length and cost of admissions before and after the pathway was introduced.
Preliminary results suggest that the treatment innovations associated with this pathway have led to reduced lengths of admission for patients with the comorbidity, which were not seen for patients without the comorbidity. Estimated cost-savings were approximately £22,837 per patient and approximately £275,000 per year for the service as a whole.
Going forward, our aim is to continue to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of investment in the pathway to determine whether the pathway improves the quality of care for patients with a comorbid ED and autism and is good value for money.
在当前的经济背景下，确保饮食失调（ED）的治疗既有效又具有成本效益至关重要。我们描述了为更好地满足自闭症 ED 患者的需求而开发的新型临床路径对住院时间和成本的影响。
该路径基于医疗机构改善模型方法，采用迭代的计划、执行、研究、行动格式来引入变革，并与有实际经验的人和医疗保健专业人员共同开展工作。我们探讨了引入该路径前后入院时间和成本的变化。
初步结果表明，与该路径相关的治疗创新导致共病患者的住院时间缩短，而没有共病的患者则没有这种情况。估计每位患者的节省成本约为 22837 英镑，整个服务每年约节省 275000 英镑。
未来，我们的目标是继续评估对该路径进行投资的有效性和成本效益，以确定该路径是否提高了患有共病 ED 和自闭症的患者的护理质量，是否物有所值。
